Normal Place: Artist Information Pack

Hi, we’re Normal Place, an artist-centric livestreaming platform and we want to work with you to produce a live online event that makes you actual money. We broadcast live comedy, cabaret, music and anything else you might find at a fringe festival. Our shows are one hour live specials, filmed from around the world in performers homes and remotely live-produced by us for our hungry cult audience.

This year, we’ve seen the world start to adapt to watching and paying for online shows. Performers have struggled to make income from free platforms like YouTube, Facebook Live and Twitch. Others have wrestled with Zoom setups, separate ticketing sites and tip jars… it’s all a big headache.

Fuck all that. We’ve got something better.

For the last year we’ve been researching and developing Normal Place. We’ll put in all the technical grunt and help you with the marketing to get an audience together. We’ll put ad money behind your campaign, promote it to our audience and work with you on a publicity campaign. And then we’ll squeeze even more royalties out of it for you by re-marketing it as an on-demand video and download.

If you’re already keen to put on a show, click here and tell us a bit about it.

…BUT I’M SCARED

We get that live streaming is a pretty new experience – it’s common for performers to be nervous about the lack of audience reaction. Maybe you’ve seen Stephen Colbert’s meltdowns about not having an audience for his tonight show and thought “OH GOD, IF COLBERT CAN’T DO IT, CAN I?”

Yes. Yes you can. You totally can. If @n00bgamer69 on Twitch can do it, so can you. We help you structure a show so that it’s not an hour of you running through your material; we work with you to make sure there’s variety in the presentation, smooth camera changes, prerecorded segments and interactions with your live chat room.

Obviously we can’t replicate the feeling of hundreds of people crowded in a tent to watch you – but, thanks to Covid-19, neither can anybody. This isn’t a replacement for that – it’s a new thing entirely. If it makes you nervous, think of it like hanging out and entertaining a bunch of new mates. Mates who are paying you.

You might also be worried about your technical limitations. So the good news is…

If you’ve got any of these, we can use ’em: smartphones, tablets or laptops with webcams. We send a link to you that will open in any of them, which our software synchronizes at our end, allowing us to control it remotely for you. We mix your audio, switch between shots and trigger any multimedia cues or prerecorded segments you might have. We then stream that to folks who have bought tickets to your show via Vimeo’s super-fast video servers.

YOU ALREADY HAVE A MULTICAM STUDIO

If you’ve got any of these, we can use ’em: smartphones, tablets or laptops with webcams. We send a link to you that will open in any of them, which our software synchronizes at our end, allowing us to control it remotely for you. We mix your audio, switch between shots and trigger any multimedia cues or prerecorded segments you might have. We then stream that to folks who have bought tickets to your show via Vimeo’s super-fast video servers.

WE’LL HELP YOU FIND YOUR AUDIENCE.

Our marketing plan is heavily based around investing in our artists. We’ll promote your show via social media advertising, YouTube placements, our email list and editorial aimed at connecting your work with our audience as it grows. We’ll also work with you to create a trailer, graphic materials and a media release for distribution.

Once your live stream is completed, we’ll master your audio and do a basic edit to clean it up for rental consumption. The finished product will still clearly be based on a live stream but will have an added layer of slick. We’ll then work with you to build further promotion for your work as we launch that product to rental.

Over the longer term, we will reinvest in promoting your show to audiences so that it has a long tail of profit for you. Targeted online marketing allows us to access new audiences for your work over time.

HOW DOES THIS LOOK TO VIEWERS?

Audiences have pretty clear expectations around what streaming portals should look like, and so our interface is inspired by the layout you see at Netflix or Stan. This includes a recommendation engine, preview functionality and a beautiful magazine-style experience.

Customers pay for your stream securely via their credit card. Our payment system is secured by Stripe and integrated into our site, so your audience never have to leave normalplace.tv.

Live stream ticket-holders receive confirmation emails on purchase, a reminder on the day of the broadcast and a notification when the broadcast comes online. These include links to your social media and anything else you might like to plug.

We will also adapt your shows’ imagery into limited edition merchandise, retailing via our RedBubble store. Well, it’s Redbubble for now – we’re working on a better solution ‘cos they charge a lot. You’ll get 75% of the revenue from each sale after Redbubble’s cost.

HOW DOES THE MONEY WORK?

We have standardized pricing, designed to help you get the most out of each stream and to offer a consistent, addictive experience for our viewers.

After arm-wrestling with our accountant for weeks, we’ve been able to work out a royalty split that leans very much in your favour.

LIVE STREAM TICKET PRICES: $15 AUD

You receive $10 AUD per sale.

ON-DEMAND RESTREAM: $7 AUD

You receive $3.50 AUD per sale.

We pay out your live stream royalties within a week of them hitting our accounts, and from then on you’ll receive any royalties as part of our quarterly payouts. We’ll email you a report of your royalties once a month.

LET’S DO A THING…

Anyway – let’s do a thing. You’ve already put in so much to get your show and career together. Thanks to our crowdfunding campaign, we’ve been able to design a sustainable business model that puts the risk onto our side. If you’ve got any other inquiries, have a chat with Levon or Tomás via email.